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When karma overran dharma

So…. the powers at work. Buckle up for a messy post. A little editing here: it is a dark post, but I am ok now. So you could save yourself some darkness and continue to the next post if you like. 😀

What’s it all about? I said goodbye to the bookstore man a few days ago. Thought it would give me peace not to be sent all over the place by his mood swings I do not understand. But ever since I have noticed that I seem to have the ability to outdo him in that. After 3 days of continuous crying, chocolate, fries and chips I’m trying to make heads and tails of it right now. Not really looking forward to learning what I have to learn. Lately I seem to do the mayor stuff by rock-bottom experiences, this does not feel any different.

On top of that I have my period. Worth mentioning? Well, yes, since it is the first real one with the hormonal inbalance in 5 years. This innerspring thing I have seems to have lost its charm. I was already wondering last week what was happening in my world when 5 different people around me started speaking of having periods while I was thinking ‘Gosh, I have not heard that word in years!’. But now I know; back are the nightmares, the pain, the darkness. I had forgotten about that. No vomiting, heart palpatations, freezing and sweating all over or fainting this time but shit, I so don’t want to go there anymore. I feel I can’t bear that now. It is too much. I feel like I’m drowning.

My glasses broke. New ones cost 400 euro’s if I’m to have a pair that suits my face. I have a non-European wide face with a non-European nose, it takes a lot of time trying to find one that actually makes me look ok and intelligent instead of fat and ugly.

My tooth broke, the one that has been fixed 3 times in the last months.

Gay marriage has been approved in the USA, in my not so humble opinion suspicously timed with fast tracking the TPP; one of the darkest trade deals since the Dutch introduced worldwide slavery. Things are falling apart, I am falling apart.

So, yeah, it feels like I’m back to square one. Destruction is big, again, images of knives circling my body, drawing blood in a destructive ritual to bleed me out. This scourge torturing my back. Haven’t seen those in a while. Dark places. I notice I get into trouble lately because I don’t speak with friends about my alcohol past and I feel I can’t explain what is going on without letting them in on what I would like to keep from them. Not sure anybody would understand anyhow. I only spoke with the store man about it and the nutritionist friend but she’s very busy. Well, my SIL knows – but she doesn’t know about darkness and she would be worried and scared so, well.

What happened? The store guy told me he quit using weed. I worried that was pretty early and then forced myself to stop having opinions and not making it my worry – I think it was ok-ish till then – apart from the point where I can’t stay out of it and actually have opinions And ultimately that seemed to be the whole point, well, my point. We spoke, all was fine-ish. Next day he posted something on Facebook, a list of photographs of everything what was bad and dark about this world. I think to know that place. I walked around there for years on and off since I was a teen and continuously during the months before I quit. I recognise / see it as the darkness leading up to the place where about 12 months ago I needed to decide ‘Do I want to live?’

The powerlessness, the incapacity, the whole world being dark; this place where light only seems to exist to illuminate all that is evil, illwrought, sickening and corrupt. Where happiness of other people hurts me and only proves their ignorance and well, general stupidity this world has no lack of. Yes, yes, I am familiar with arrogance as you may notice. And no I do not mean that for real, it’s a mood thing tainted by a more structural character failing. And yes I put it out here.

So, he was in a dark place and I went into this, what in hindsight looks like a familiar mode, I thought; ‘Let’s gear up and save this guy!’ (Don’t laugh, I am guessing by now most of you know this attitude to be the recipe for disaster.) I went over to the store. First, second or third sentence I heard was ‘I went to the coffee shop yesterday!!’ Not spoken like an fyi but more like a ‘and don’t you dare touch me!’ kind of thing. Well. If that is your deal, that is your deal…. Let’s see…. I thought of walking out immediately because I expect very little communication from somebody who’s fences are up so high but that would look like, I don’t know, reproaching? I worried, I think to know that place where things are sort of getting tight and thinking of wanting to quit and things not working out.

So I sat and listened to him spreading darkness with every sentence he spoke. He was trying to convince another friend of his of I don’t know what but it was bad. I was sitting in the store thinking ‘I should get out of here because he’s looking for a fight, picking them out of thin air and I am in no position to deal with this’.

Being me, I did not. I thought, as I have always thought; it is my fault, he probably felt pushed to quit by me and blabablablablaa. So… it is my responsibility to defuse this. I’m thinking my intention is not to only defuse but also to take the blame I guess… 😦 Looking back I have come to the conclusion that this has been my pattern all my life: I have thought that over my parents trying to verbally if not energetically kill each other, I’ve thought that in companies with people fighting. And I have always assumed it to be true; If they are angry it must be because I am bad. I should fix this. So I sat and let events take place till indeed things exploded, not without my help… :-/. Unfortunately or, more ‘of course’?

My cat takes another route: if I’m in a bad mood she goes out and does fun things on her own. 🙂

I wish there would be another layout to WordPress where I could write my version of what happened on the left, and on the right what I learned from it. It took me 3 days of crying and desperation to learn that what somebody else does is non of my business. I don’t need to help. I don’t need to inform. I don’t need to defuse. I don’t need to be a lightning rod. I don’t need to tell about the books I read. I don’t even need to tell my own story or my blog address for that matter. (According to the stats only one person from my country has been here and read 2 posts so I’m confident that he will not, especially now, show up and you know, I am past caring about me in this. I thought I could deal, I could not. This whole thing send me spinning. Not proud. Fucked up. (BSM: if you happen to read this let me know if you’re not ok reading this and I’ll dunno, I’ll see.)

I learned that part of my want to help is driven by this feeling of lack of worth and hence I need to fix and control the other. Yes, there is a part that hurts when somebody else hurts and me wanting to lessen that but I need to get rid of the forcefulness. Which I guess… is what my therapist has been saying for 20 years now. (Hi!) Not sure how to deal with it. Intention, intention, intention, it is all about intention. And then there is this point where I don’t want to realise that my intentions are not clear and clean. 😦 When karma overran dharma.

He said something like how I had put pressure on him but it all hit the truth button pretty hard so I went in a systems lock down and can not repeat now what was said. I experienced a freeze. Complete with the inability to move, to walk, even talk for a few seconds, bend my neck and well, all the other systems alarm that goes with it :-/. I can’t remember having had a real systems lock down since I have been sober. It was overwhelming at first but I was more surprised by the intensity than anything else.

Funny enough I could actually look at it and experience it somewhat separately. Not sure how to verb it because I’ve been eating this feeling away ever since, not exactly something I appreciate storing in my memory. It is like chaos ready to destroy all that comes in its way. But I do remember thinking: ‘So this is where I was born.’

Yes. I know. Not your ordinary day. I did not know the meaning of it yet until I had time to go home and think and feel things over. To me it is about the force of life, the creative chaos, the primordial soup, I’m guessing it’s the yin without the yang. The other day I was saying to a friend of mine: I wonder why I keep on meeting guys whose main issue is one with the destructive forces. Why? I guess I know now. I have an affinity with it. This is where I was born. Might be where everybody was born. Don’t know. I don’t know what it means but knowing it makes me able to stand upright while the powers (me? dunno) that be throw the shit at me that I have been going through the last days. Would be nice to ask the bookstore man, he would know where to look it up.

And while at the other side of the counter the store man was very angrily defending his general right to be (way over the top) angry I was thinking: I was created in chaos. I am drawn to the power in it. I am drawn to the ability to destruct. I am drawn to people who know that darkness – this is why we are speaking here. I did feel threatened (not in the physical sense btw) and I guess my life force responded, it blew me of my socks, internally. Of course internally. God forbid I would fall apart in front of somebody :-/, specifically if it had not been admitted that I was right (of course… 😦 ). We spoke, we worked things out but I also managed to exactly NOT say what I thought I should on how anger influences me.

I keep on meeting people who, like my mom, seem to come out of nowhere and ignite. And me walking on egg shells and if the shit hit the fan, try to defuse the situation by being the lightning rod. There is a thing, coming from that meeting I went home, cried about my mom a lot and realised how her moodiness has influenced me. There was a moment I could dissociate myself from the drama and look at it. And then came my period and it all became messy again.

Next morning we had a FB discussion over a picture of a young girl showing her privates to a young boy and saying ‘with this I am going to control your life’. I have, after years of hating men finally come to a point where I see that both men and women are fucked up by the stupidity of this societal ideas of oppression and sex and oppression by sex. And of course thus by our familiar and individual trauma’s. Good choice of words ‘fucked up’. :-D.

Well, whatever, things started of ok and suddenly seem to spin out of control because I made joke on ‘how things slow down at older age’. Got called ‘vulgar’ and I told him to bugger off. Literally. I realised I had gotten myself in a friendship with a person who, as a Jack out of the box, or, as my mom, comes out of some corner to jump at me all angry. 😦 And as hormone stimulated arguments go I deleted all FB contact, brought back my borrowed books and said; ‘With the process I am in I can not afford our friendship.’ and he replied with ‘You are always welcome here.’ Which I took as sincere, not meant to diss me.

And then I cried, over him, my mom, my dad, my inability to stay on my happy track, my moodswings, my process, the darkness in me, the darkness in this world and how fundamentally wrong I experience its mechanisms and our distance to what is natural. Well, the darkness that Gabor Maté speaks about. Why the pain? And I could not find any light. Feel like I’m about to hand in life’s notice. I don’t want to be me anymore in this world. (= Learning by rock-bottom but not doing the learning yet. 😦 )

How very dramatically period-like. And how very ‘With this I will rule your life / badly influence our connection’. But in another way. The day before our last subject of conversation was ‘what you speak about happens in real life’. He said no. I said yes-ish. I guess there is that too.

Aaah, and then I read A hangover free’s post on emotional maturity and I thought: I have not managed any of these yet. I slept and dreamed about drinking and how I did not care any more about being sober but still handed back the bottle because my back is against the wall and drinking will only make it worse. You know, Brad from a home without a roof threw in the towel. It hurts. End of the road said goodbye to her blog – I am guessing for the right reasons but still, I would wish it were different. I hate to stand by and not be able to help somebody who’s in pain but I can’t. I just can’t. Experiencing the bankruptcy of the help-concept I have lived in all my life and it is not pleasant. I need to take care of me now. I’m exactly where I need to be but it is a fucking dark place. I want to smash and break things. Need to find the light again. Tolstoy springs to mind.

I am not sure if I am happy that I quit. I would have not been alive if I had not. Somehow that looks very inviting right now, to not have to care. So again, learning by rock-bottom experiences. But not sure if I’m doing all the learning.

I take: chocolate, fries, chips and meat. Several days now and I don’t give a shit.

I need: stuff this.

I want: things to be easier. The cat is ill again. Bladder infection and sneezing. 😦 Actually, I would LOVE to do an ayahuasca ceremony on this subject of darkness and help, boundaries of that and anger. That is what I want.

3 Things; the sun was out so I slept on the balcony and got a little tan. Musqitoes bite but do not leave big marks anymore which I guess says something about heath. And I finally finished this post, took me 3 days and actually I am feeling better. Ghegheghe, I saw bookstore man number 2 this weekend, he’s at another shop. He’s 72, I sometimes take him fries from the market. He’s got no lower teeth so he eats the soft ones, I the harder ones. 🙂 He sees me walk in and says ‘What’s up with you? Love sick?’ ‘Well, something like it: friend sick. And I’m stuck.’ And then he hugged and kissed me and said: ‘Me too, me too. Everybody today.’ And we spoke about darkness, aggression, being stuck, alcohol (he did heroine and alcohol, now he does yoga and he paints) and relations and working out issues through relations. He’s a bit of a rascal, works out he has this 50 year old girl friend. Bookstore men. 🙂 ❤ 🙂

Must be funny for you to read this. If you were not surprised before you might now consider: do you ever speak with your book store man about love life and addictions? It seems I do. I’m building up this whole second life separate from my actual life where people whose last name, birthday, telephone number and address I don’t know, know way more about me than my friends. Sometimes it worries me. Sometimes I wonder; how is this different from the denial I was in when drinking? But also; I am friends with my regular friends because they walk in the clean world where life is easier. They have kept me sane these last years by being a reference, by not going down that trap of ‘drinking with inferiors’. And I have, over the years, said goodbye to all the heavy users/drinkers to make sure they would not weigh me down when I would need to get sober. Now I find I team up with people who did or do use because it is company where people need and look for personal development and the darkness can exist.

How did I get here? I’ve used Ctrl + to make the lettertype big on the screen but it gives me even less oversight over this post than earlier. Well, still not editing.

Sort of separate but I’m guessing also another motor in this unclear situation is this ego thing where I am attracted to knowledge and intelligence, secondly can’t stand that I know shit (which is not true but I think I don’t since I do not know Sanskrit or Chinese terms) and that makes me feel inferior, never good enough, meaningless, falling behind, useless. Sometimes I am ok with it and I can respect all the time and effort and specifically self-exploration that goes into the studies that the store man has done. And sometimes I feel shit and wanting to lash out. It twists my intentions.

And then there is the subject of sex which I am not willing to discuss but I guess it is part of the equation. Since day one I realised that I had difficulty with dealing with this friendship so there is a big no-go in the yearning and wanting. Also because I feel the yearning and wanting is impolite, specifically when somebody is in a relation or not interested. I am pretty sure he would feel this through the air anyhow – so, a no-go because impolite. We discussed it, came to the conclusion that for both it is there sometimes but it is not always important, nor looked for. It is only now that I told him to bugger off that I suddenly think that sex would be The Perfect Solution. 😀 (Sorry!) But he’s taken anyway. Or not, or is, or not, or, don’t know. Traffic light relation with his GF. And then there is the 1 year rule. So… Noticing now why the 1 year rule is important. I can’t even deal with friendship. And then there would be his 1 year rule to consider. So, no-go.

I need to deal with finances. Falling in love and storming towards a big rejection of somebody who is either in a relation or can have his pick from a shitload of interesting, educated, smart, beautiful, fresh, well-read, slim, succesful, healthy, yoga-ish, balanced, developed women who come walking in every day, speak his language, have travelled where he has been and (some of whom) lay themselves down at the coffee table is NOT a smart thing to do. 😦

Still, my heart (or karma?) says: ‘I recognise darkness, I smell power (issues), I feel limitlessness. Let’s check this out!!!!!’ 🙂 And there it goes happily bouncing out of its chest, messing up life and generally heading for disaster. A situation I, as a standard tend to mistake for love. 🙂 Sorry. 😦 Guess I’ve got some learning to do.

It is 03:24 here, night time. Time to go to bed. This must be my longest post every. I’ve learned a lot. Karma overran dharma. It is out of my system now. Hope by writing about it I did not put it in yours. And shit I do not have to worry about that. It is not my care. I do worry about privacy, not mine. Not sure how to deal.

You never put out my kharma so please always write, write, write it out. I hope it acts as a release for you. Anne is right about not being able to change or fix others; it’s not your responsibility. Taking care of you is.
I like the sound of (older) bookstore man and you eating fries together 🙂 And I like it that we find comfort and connection in strange places. Like here! Hugs to you Feeling xxx